Norman Podhoretz

Forget that Packers-Bears rivalry. The greatest grudge match in history was waged by Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald over the proper way to write fiction. In a letter to Fitzgerald, Wolfe called himself a “putter-inner.” He tried to cram life — big, rollicking, loud, sloppy life — onto the page. Fitzgerald, Wolfe said, was a “leaver-outer.” He distilled life's unruly swarm of sensations and experiences into simple, elegant sentences. With Wednesday's announcement that the new pick for the Chicago Public Library's One Book, One Chicago program is Saul Bellow's gorgeous grab bag of a novel, “The Adventures of Augie...

Related "Norman Podhoretz" Articles

Forget that Packers-Bears rivalry. The greatest grudge match in history was waged by Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald over the proper way to write fiction.
In a letter to Fitzgerald, Wolfe called himself a “putter-inner.” He tried to cram life —...